On the 12th, National Tax Service Commissioner Lim Gwang-hyeon said the plan to create a future response fund to use additional tax revenue from the semiconductor boom to support the three mega projects and strengthen the country's long-term competitiveness is a policy that is absolutely necessary.
Administrator Lim posted a message on X (formerly Twitter) titled "For today's tax revenue to become tomorrow's competitiveness" on the 12th and stated accordingly. Lim said, "Sustainable public finance depends not only on how much tax revenue is secured, but also on how stably it is secured."
Administrator Lim described tax revenue as a "tilted portfolio" and said it is "always a concern." The point is that the amount of tax collected varies widely with fluctuations in the semiconductor cycle. In fact, when semiconductors were booming in 2021, tax revenue rose 20.6% from the previous year, but in 2023 it fell 12.6% due to weaker information technology (IT) demand.
Administrator Lim said, "When the semiconductor industry is booming, tax revenue increases rapidly, led by corporate tax," and added, "When the semiconductor cycle slows, tax revenue declines along with deteriorating results at corporations, leading to repeated difficulties in fiscal management."
Administrator Lim said, "From the perspective of diversifying the tax revenue portfolio, semiconductors, our core competitiveness, must be continuously nurtured as a super-gap industry to cement global technological superiority, and we must actively invest in and foster new strategic industries that will be future growth engines," adding, "This will diversify the industrial structure and, in the long term, lead to a virtuous cycle that builds a balanced and stable tax revenue base."